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fabricatedlunatic said:
Last night I rewatched Wings of Honneamise.

Hiroyuki Yamaga, what happened to you, man? From this masterpiece to Mahoromatic and gawd knows what else since.

WoH could only have been made in the boom years of the 1980s. In no other time would a bunch of wide-eyed 20-somethings been given the cash to produce anything, never mind a high-budget feature film with little commercial appeal. Yamaga and Gainax made WoH simply because they wanted to make it and the purity of their vision shines through.

It's an astonishing piece of world-building, in which everything from the design of buildings to cutlery is familiar yet alien, and it's also an inspiring coming of age story. The sad thing is that there will never be another film quite like it. Ten out of effing ten.
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You good sir have good taste.

I rewatched Windaria myself. Let me copy-paste what I wrote to a friend:

...it was a lush display of worldbuilding, particularly world-drawing. Bloody gorgeous. And I loved the way it depicted tragedy without ever resorting to futility. I mean, the characters' choices are not predetermined or unchangeable, but they do make terrible choices as a result of their blinkered, often naive image of the world. That aspect was great. The narrative itself, however, was quite thin as well as some of the twists being contrived (that hooded guy from Paro kingdom chose Izu to sabotage Itha just because he happened to be the one to close the water gate. Did I miss something or is that a profoundly unsound basis for choosing your pawns?). I could describe in five sentences everything that happens and why.

But yes, generally not finding great new things on the market these days.
 
Now, Windaria's a film a man with taste can truly appreciate. Character-focused tales of doomed love and greed - right up my alley. I HATED Izu to begin with for forgetting about the woman he was supposed to love - him indirectly killing her by leaving her hanging - but I actually started to pity him when he returned home and realized what a tosspot he'd been. All his desire for life had been eroded as he climbed on the tree at the end.

My only complaint about the film was the ghost ship nonsense. It was never explained, and I didn't get why Druid turned to stone at the end. Weird.
 
Patlabor 2? Hmm, now there's a good idea.

Rewatching WoH made me realize how few directors there are with a free reign to do whatever the hell they want, without concern over what a production committee or a mainstream audience might want. Oshii is one and the dearly departed Satoshi Kon was another. Maybe Makoto Shinkai too. And... that's about it.

I shall have to add Windaria to the backlog.

EDIT: I watched the BD. It's a thing of beauty to be sure.
 
********, I told you to watch Windaria weeks ago; even linking you to a 2GB torrent - possibly the best looking DVD-rip ever.

You'll probably hate it 'cause there aren't any boobs. I'm pretty sure you, like me, only remember the boob-part of Wings of Boredom but - unlike me - want to come across as a mature, 31-year-old man who can appreciate wasting two hours.
 
fabricatedlunatic said:
Last night I rewatched Wings of Honneamise.

Hiroyuki Yamaga, what happened to you, man? From this masterpiece to Mahoromatic and gawd knows what else since.

WoH could only have been made in the boom years of the 1980s. In no other time would a bunch of wide-eyed 20-somethings been given the cash to produce anything, never mind a high-budget feature film with little commercial appeal. Yamaga and Gainax made WoH simply because they wanted to make it and the purity of their vision shines through.

It's an astonishing piece of world-building, in which everything from the design of buildings to cutlery is familiar yet alien, and it's also an inspiring coming of age story. The sad thing is that there will never be another film quite like it. Ten out of effing ten.
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wow it really is quite sad when think about it isn't it, the man who directed Wings of Honneamise(considered by many to be an all time anime classic) went to direct Mahoromatic(considered by many to be a big pile of exploitative dog poo) and other such uninspired shows.

What a one hit wonder(albiet a really good hit) he turned out to be.... :(
 
Out of interest, does Maho include any surprise rape attempts thwarted by blows to the head, also? I've yet to watch my DVDs - me being not so hot on maids. (Police women, FTW!)
 
That-Bastard-Bad-Guy-Aion said:
********, I told you to watch Windaria weeks ago; even linking you to a 2GB torrent - possibly the best looking DVD-rip ever.
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Cuh, you can't expect me to keep track of every link you send my way, especially not with your abysmal taste. I'll have a look for it later.
 
Shiki ep 12 - man, great return for the show after a month off. Very interesting developments, especially given that the show still has ten episodes left. Hopefully another episode from Toshio's POV next week (with another bit of Seishin/Sunako, too) and we will really be able to see where everyone stands.
 
Hell Girl 3 - 1-2

Not great, really. The punishment scenes have gone from amusing to totally overdone; them now being far too silly to enjoy. Ai dressed as a bee? A guy having plugs inserted into him?.... very dumb. And, though the second episode was much better, the first story had no depth; a silly girl wanting to kill her overly strict teacher - that was it.

The series should have been finished with S2. I always got the feeling the very end of the ending got thrown in there late in the day because of the series' popularity, and the start explaining nothing about why Ai is doing once again that which she didn't want to do any more makes me believe I was right.

Maybe it'll get better, but right now my motivation level is too low to continue...
 
Stuart-says-yes said:
A world only god knows ep 2

This might actually be the funniest thing this season, its pretty great
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I wouldn't go that far, but I did definitely enjoy ep 2 a lot more than ep 1. Glad that the ep wasn't just about "clearing" another girl, although when it did come to that at the end it seemed like it had more potential than the first story.
 
Naruto Shippuden Episodes 27-39. Meh, it suffers from DBZ-level pacing problems, but doesn't have the nostalgia to get me through it. There were some highlights, but not enough to make me, say, go onto CrunchyRoll and start watching Ep. 40. I can wait for the 4th DVD.
 
Hakuouki Hekketsuroku episode 1

A great start to the second season and the op is brilliant.

Shinryaku! Ika Musume episode 2

Another great episode which had me laughing quite a lot

Tantei Opera Milky Holmes Episode 1

A great start to the series, some parts had me laughing lots and some of the characters are really awesome.

Shiki episode 12

A good episode and definitely worth the three week wait
 
That-Bastard-Bad-Guy-Aion said:
Hell Girl 3 - 1-2

Not great, really. The punishment scenes have gone from amusing to totally overdone; them now being far too silly to enjoy. Ai dressed as a bee? A guy having plugs inserted into him?.... very dumb. And, though the second episode was much better, the first story had no depth; a silly girl wanting to kill her overly strict teacher - that was it.
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I'm watching this as well at the moment, though I'm up to episode 10 (of season 3). Naturally I had completely different impressions to you :)

The one shot stories making up each episode are definitely weaker so far. I thought that season 1 had the best stories with season 2 being a very mixed bag. Season 3 is weaker and occasionally seems to retread similar themes to the previous material as well - I guess they were running out of ideas by this point.

Regarding the punishment scenes, I actually thought these were an improvement! Season 1 had the best ones, but season 2 became almost a self-parody very quickly and some made me cringe. Season 3 looked as though it was more of the same at first but they rapidly became so completely ridiculous that it crossed into the area of surreal theatre that I find entertaining.

The opening and ending sequences/songs for season 3 are also much better than season 2; I thoroughly love them. One thing I found interesting was that so far, the Jigoku Tsuushin "team" have always been portrayed as the main characters and very likeable. I still love them, but here there's definitely an air of menace about them when they're shown from a different perspective due to Yuzuki being the focus. Kikuri (whose presence in season 2 completely irritated me) actually looks cool in the opening instead of merely distractingly ugly. The other new character seems pointless so far.

R
 
Rui said:
I'm watching this as well at the moment, though I'm up to episode 10 (of season 3). Naturally I had completely different impressions to you :)
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It tickled me that, when I glanced over your Hell Girl ratings, yours were the opposite of mine: me rating S1 7/10 and S2 8/10. At first I 8/10'd S1 because I felt Ai's powerful back-story arc made up for lots of lackluster, fake episodic stories that were squashed into 20 minutes. You'll no doubt be shocked to learn that it was S2's episodic stories having an added touch of realism and not-so-clear black/white divide from the get-go that made me lower my S1 rating to 7/10. I felt a lot more effort was put into the second season to make up for the concept not being fresh anymore; the black comedy story impressing me greatly.

...so, basically, my thoughts are the opposite of your own. If you truly aren't Roy, it's probably a male/female thing - idk.

The opening and ending sequences/songs for season 3 are also much better than season 2; I thoroughly love them.
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...You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?

I LOVED S2's OP/ED; downloading both. But I can't even be bothered to sit through S3's. The visuals do nothing for me whatsoever and I care not at all for the music. It's depressing that not even a good OP can get me pumped for the episodic fun now...

One thing I found interesting was that so far, the Jigoku Tsuushin "team" have always been portrayed as the main characters and very likeable.
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One of S2's major plus points was how the support team got blended into the episodic side. Instead of filler supporting characters being created, the writers fitted the Hell Girl team in. And that was good because it gave them far more time. Plus, there was even an episode or two dedicated to the development of *insert names of team Hell Girl characters here* - those episodes providing some much needed insight.

Kikuri (whose presence in season 2 completely irritated me) actually looks cool in the opening instead of merely distractingly ugly. The other new character seems pointless so far.
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I don't know if it's my goldfish memory or what, but wasn't Kikuri revealed to be the spider at the end of S2; Ai's boss? I don't get why the spider is back acting like a little girl, or why team Hell Girl aren't afraid of her...

About the new character, I got the impression the writers simply threw in a new face for the hell of it. A superficial new element; much like Ai's kimono now raining balls rather than flowers when she does her punishing bit.

If I can be arsed, I'll watch a few more episodes later tonight. Me stopping after two episodes is rarely a good sign but I did on-hold S2, halfway through, back in the day... right after the black comedy bit that I saw as a plus point when re-watching.

PS: What does S2's subtitle - Two Mirrors - refer to? Never got that...
 
SoreMachi ep 2 - Extremely funny. I think I might also be falling in love with Hotori just a little bit. :~

With Ika-musume coming down ever so slightly from ep 1 to ep 2, and KamiNomi not being so good in ep1, this has been the best comedy of the season so far, for me, and Hotori has probably jumped ahead of Ika in my character rankings.
 
(More Hell Girl stuff)

I was actually going to rate season 2 much lower until the final arc, where it finally got things together and became compelling. I'm hoping that the more plot-focused approach in season 3 will work out when things get moving properly.

I really hope that the new character actually does something eventually though; I felt more attached to the rest of the Team from the outset than I do to him. In a weird way, them receiving more background exposition in season 2 almost spoiled the mystery. I really wanted to know Hone Onna's backstory at first but when the time came I think I found the sensation of wondering more fun than knowing.

With regards to the songs I loved the season 2 ending but it was definitely a grower. The season 2 opening was a let down after the first (the animation wasn't as gripping either), whereas season 3's music is something I can stick on repeat and enjoy any time. Shame that the DVDs aren't generous enough with the bitrates to do the artwork justice.

And I bought all the OSTs and singles (except OP2), so clearly like them more than you do if you just downloaded them ;P

Kikuri (season 2 spoilers): IIRC she was just channelling the Boss, and isn't necessarily him. I don't understand why she's back either, and apparently having to use a false body. Even in season 2 I found it odd that everyone just calmly tolerated her antics when she came out of nowhere, but as you say it's weird that they are continuing to do so now. Hopefully she'll have some answers later on for us. At least there are fewer extreme close ups so far of her freaky eyes/eyebrows. Wanyuudou is much better looking than that little imp.

That-Bastard-Bad-Guy-Aion said:
PS: What does S2's subtitle - Two Mirrors - refer to? Never got that...
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I happened to be following a thread on Mania which got the perfect response to this a while ago from a Sentai rep, so I'll be lazy and paste it in:

Shoko Oono, who translated the first season of Hell Girl, is translating the second season as well. The choice of "Two Mirrors" was hers. With her kind permission, I am including her reasoning here.

Two Mirrors:
The term "futakomori" is a bit odd, because normally, this combination of characters is read as "futagomori". However, assuming that was just an aesthetic choice, if we look at the word "futagomori", it refers to two of something enclosed together. One specific example is of 2 silkworms, which have woven a single cocoon around themselves. Thus, following this logic of two things kind of being brought together as one, the most likely reference seems to be how Ai's past and present blur together at the end of the season, bringing closure to Ai's journey. The opening narration refers to "a set of two mirrors facing one another", where the term "futakomori" is used to emphasize how the two mirrors are together. Specifically, the set of mirrors refers to a set made so that you can look behind you by using the two mirrors, thus evoking the idea of looking forward to look behind you, combining past and present. Thus, "Two Mirrors".
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R
 
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Bakuman Episode 1

Wow. I didn't expect to like this as much as I did, it's so far removed from Death Note (aside from a few nods) I wasn't sure if I'd still enjoy it, but it's off to a great start. I liked that when we first meet Akito everything seems to be leading us to believe he'll be light-esque especially with this "It's not a Death Note" line and yet he's so different, aside from a similar face.

Really drew me in, I'll be watching each week now
 
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